


Last Memories

by respoftw



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Grief, M/M, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 06:20:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13828314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: It had never occurred to Paul that Hugh's last memories of him may not have been good ones.





	Last Memories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amycooper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amycooper/gifts).



> My heart broke when Saru and Tilly thought that Paul might have been the one to hurt Hugh. So, I wrote this.
> 
> For amycooper who got me into this ship. Look at me writing something that isn't SGA for the first time in two years!

Paul didn't have the market cornered on grief. The war with the Klingons had made all of them far too familiar with the pain of loss. He knew that his grief wasn't any greater than anyone else's, that the hole Hugh’s absence had left inside in him wasn't any larger, but sometimes it felt like it must be.

At least he had the memory of saying goodbye. The mycelium network had given him that, even if it had taken away everything else. Whether it was real or not was another matter. On the good days, when the grief was quietened to a dull ache, he believed that it was real. On the bad days though….at least his last really  _real_ memory of Hugh was a good one. A kiss followed by a promise, a promise that he had kept, even if Hugh wasn't alive to go with him.  

La Boheme.  Paul had hated every second of it.

Those memories - one real, one dubious - were a comfort to him.

It never occurred to him that Hugh's last memories of him may not have been.

* * *

“Ah, Lt. Commander Stamet, Ensign Tilly, may I join you both?”

Paul let Tilly accept Saru’s offer, letting her rise up and pull out a chair for their Acting Captain. She even did a silly little half aborted bow as she did so. It was almost enough to make Paul smile. It would have charmed Hugh beyond words. Paul rubbed absently at his chest at the familiar flare of pain that the combination of Hugh and past tense always caused.

Forcing a smile on his face, he made just enough eye contact to be polite and continued to methodically chew the food that tasted like nothing more than ash in his mouth.

Tilly had been content to fill his silences but Saru obviously expected more as he directed his full attention towards Paul.

“Lt. Commander Stamets,” Saru began, his cadence a little more halting and stilted than usual. “I have been meaning to speak with you for some time now. I wish to apologise for my mistaken belief in the aftermath of Dr Culber’s death.”

Paul looked up from his plate, confused by the turn the conversation had taken. Next to him, he could see Tilly frozen in panic, her eyes wide. Whatever Saru was talking about, she knew about it too.

“What belief would that be?” Paul asked, careful to keep his voice his flat and even.

Saru seemed too wrapped up in his own nervousness to notice the edge that Paul had been unable to keep out of his voice. “The belief that Dr Culber had perished at your own hands. It seemed the most likely solution at the time and - - “

Ah, _there_ was the Kelpian danger response.

Saru broke off as his threat ganglia splayed out the back of his head, his hands coming up to hide them.

Paul had risen to his feet, his chair making a loud scraping noise against the hard floor of the mess hall. He didn't know why he had stood up, or quite why he was doing his best to loom over Saru and Tilly but maybe it was just that sitting down while someone spoke so casually of him killing the most important person in his life was not something he could tolerate.

The air in the room seemed thinner than it had a moment ago and he could hear himself gasping for breath between words as he spoke. “You - you though that I had - - how could - - I would - “

“Sir,” Tilly reached out and laid a small hand on his arm, removing it just as quickly when he turned to glare at her. “Please. It was..you weren't yourself. Even when we thought that - - we didn't think it was _you_ you. It was…the hyperactivity of your brain matter was - and you had hit him earlier and - - oh, heck, I shouldn't have said that.”

Paul was slammed by the memory of watching Hugh fall by his own hand, tumbling over onto the floor in the infirmary. He had hit him, he had raised his hand to Hugh and - Paul felt the tasteless food that he'd been forcing down start to turn in his stomach.

He didn't wait to hear any more. He pushed his way past Tilly and Saru, past the rubber necking crew members who were sitting at the other tables and out of the mess hall. When he reached the corridors of the Discovery he started to run.

Another memory hit him, lying on a medbay bed wearing one of the restraint jackets, like the one they put the Klingon prisoner in.  Like he was dangerous, like he was a murderer.

He lost his lunch in a random hallway, heaving through the retches and wiping a shaking hand across his mouth when he was done. He sat heavily, leaning against the cold wall and tried to steady his breathing.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there, the stink of his own vomit in his nose, but here were hands and voices and someone was laying him down in an unfamiliar bed, one that didn’t still have the faint trace of Hugh’s shampoo on the pillow. Paul wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing but he fell asleep within seconds of being out there so maybe that was his answer.

* * *

He felt almost human when he woke up.

Cracking his eyes open, he saw Tilly sitting at a desk nearby. There was another, empty, bed across from him and he realised he must be in her quarters.

“People will talk,” he said, his voice still rough with sleep.

“Sir!” Tilly started in surprise, twisting in her chair to look at him. “You're awake. I mean, of course you're awake, you're talking. Unless you’re sleep talking? My cousin Cassie does that, she can answer questions and everything and - -“

“Tilly - -“

“ - and I am so sorry for thinking what I thought. I know how deeply you cared for Dr Culber and..” she trailed off. Sylvia Tilly, at a loss for words. Paul idly wondered if he should record the date and time. Hugh would have found that thought mean. Hugh had always been the best part of him.

“I saw him.”

Paul didn't mean to say it, he hadn't told anyone about what happened to him in when he was lost in the mycelium network, not all of it anyway. Maybe he was scared they would think he was crazy. Maybe he was scared they would tell him it was all true.

“I saw Hugh,” he clarified. Hell, he was committed now. “When I was lost in the network, he was there, he showed me the way out. And again when we were trying to find our way back, he lit my way like a torchbearer."  He smiled absently as he remembered Michael's speech at starfleet.  "I don't know if any of it was real. I - - “ Paul trailed off and swallowed hard, suddenly aware that he was unloading on an Ensign, on someone who worked under him and -

“I think it was real,” Tilly said quietly. “Who’s to say it wasn't? We know so little about the universe really and - well, if there's any way that our loved ones could look out for us, could keep an eye on us after they died then, well, I'm sure Dr Culber would want to do that for you. He,” she hesitated, suddenly unsure, her eyes searching Paul’s. She must have found whatever she was looking for because she continued, her voice stronger than it had been before. “He wouldn't leave you. When you were gone, when your mind was lost and your eyes were..he never left you, not even when Lorca told him he had to.”

“Not even when I hit him,” Paul said, his voice bitter.

“No,” Tilly said firmly. “Not ever. If it's even remotely possible for him to still be looking out for you, I know that he would find a way to do it.”

Paul let himself smile. She was right. If anyone could do it, it would be Hugh.

“Thanks Tilly,” he said. “You're a good friend.”

Tilly beamed, wide and bright. Hugh really would have loved her. Hugh had a lot of love to give.

Paul didn't know if his experiences in the mycelium network were real or not but he wanted to believe they were. If their positions were reversed, Hugh would have believed it was real. When you came right down to it, belief was a choice. And Paul chose to believe that Hugh’s last memory of him was love.

 


End file.
